Zhi DongXi (public number: zhidxcom)
Author | Yang Chang
Edit | Three Norths
Zhidong reported on March 17 that today, the artificial intelligence company Beijing Geling Deep Pupil Information Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Geling Deep Pupil") landed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board at an issue price of 39.49 yuan per share, with a stock code of 688207.
The opening price of Geling Deep Pupil was 38 yuan / share, and then the stock price was lowered, as low as 34.3 yuan / share. As of the close, the stock price of Geling Deep Pupil was 37.46 yuan per share, and the total market value was 6.929 billion.
When it comes to domestic computer vision startups, in addition to the artificial intelligence (AI) four dragons represented by SenseTime and Megvii, Geling Deep Pupil, founded in 2013, is also a very important player. At present, Geling's AI technology has been implemented in the fields of urban management, smart finance and commercial retail, and its products and solutions in new fields such as sports and health, rail transportation operation and maintenance have also entered the customer verification stage.
According to the prospectus, the revenue of Geling Deep Pupil in 2018, 2019, 2020 and the first half of 2021 was 51.9635 million yuan, 71.2107 million yuan, 242.7156 million yuan and 72.1880 million yuan, respectively.
From the acceptance of the IPO on June 22, 2021, to the successful listing on March 17, 2022, it took only about 9 months for Gren deep pupils.
In this listing, Geling Deep Pupil plans to raise 1 billion yuan, and the net amount of funds raised after excluding the issuance fee is 1.67 billion yuan, which is 670 million yuan beyond the original plan. The funds raised will be used for the green pupil artificial intelligence algorithm platform upgrade project, artificial intelligence innovation application research and development project, marketing service system upgrade construction project and supplementary working capital.
▲The purpose of the funds raised by The Deep Pupil of The Grove
First, the founder was a senior researcher at Google
Geling Deep Pupil was founded in 2013, and around 2013 is exactly the period when some of the leading AI start-ups in China are concentrating on entrepreneurship, such as the establishment of Yitu Technology in 2012 and the establishment of SenseTime in 2014.
Founder Dr. Yong Zhao graduated from the Department of Computer Engineering at Brown University in the United States, and his professional direction during his doctoral studies was computer vision and computational imaging. Zhao Yong has been a senior researcher at Google Headquarters Research Institute since 2009, and has also participated in the research and development of Google Glass as a core personnel.
▲ Zhao Yong, the founder of Geling Deep Pupil
The establishment of Geling Deep Pupil is inseparable from the promotion of an important investor, who is Xu Xiaoping, co-founder of New Oriental and founder of Zhen Fund. At the end of 2012, Xu Xiaoping met Zhao Yong, a senior researcher at Google's headquarters research institute. Both see the huge commercial potential of three-dimensional vision technology and plan to promote the implementation of technology in the retail field. Xu Xiaoping also helped Zhao Yong find a CEO to fulfill Zhao Yong's requirement of "just writing code wholeheartedly" at that time. Therefore, He Bofei, who has been an executive in retail companies such as Procter & Gamble and Hualian and also wants to start a business, joined this entrepreneurial team.
Capital is very optimistic about the newly established Geling Deep Pupil, in 2013, in addition to Xu Xiaoping's Zhen Fund, there are also Ceyuan Venture Capital participating in the investment, with a total investment amount of millions of yuan. In 2014, Glen Deep Pupil received tens of millions of dollars in financing from Sequoia Capital, which remains the second largest institutional shareholder of Glen Deep Pupil.
▲ The prospectus lists the current top ten shareholders of Geling Deep Pupil
Glenn Deep Pupil originally planned to apply scene recognition technology in computer vision to the physical retail industry, to establish user portraits by analyzing consumer behavior, and to help offline retail enterprise users optimize the company's business strategy. However, around 2013, the offline retail industry is suffering from the impact of e-commerce, and there is a wave of physical store closures in various places, which has affected the technology commercialization process of Geling Deep Pupil.
Later, Glen deep pupil decided to switch the industry track where its technology landed, and began to try security, finance, etc., while the company's core management team also changed.
In January 2017, CEO He Bofei left, Zhao Yong took over the baton, Deng Yafeng, a senior scientist of the former Baidu Deep Learning Research Institute, joined Geling Deep Pupil and took over as CTO, Huang Huidong, a veteran of the security industry and former vice president of Weihao Technology Electronics, served as president and was responsible for sales, and the company's technology research and development focus also shifted from "three-dimensional vision" to the mainstream "deep learning + face recognition" at that time.
In July 2017, Gren deep hit hitchhiker received a Series C financing. In 2019, the company received a C+ round of financing and two rounds of D financing.
In 2020, there were once again major personnel changes in Geling Deep Pupil, and in March and August, Deng Yafeng, technical director of Geling Deep Pupil, and Zhang Debing, chief scientist, left their posts due to personal career development planning. However, Gren responded that the departure of the two important people had less impact on the core technical team. According to the prospectus, in 2020, the revenue of Geling Deep Pupil exceeded 200 million, which was the highest revenue in the reporting period.
At present, Zhao Yong, the founder of Geling Deep Pupil, indirectly controls 36.19% of the company's voting rights through companies such as Deep Pupil Wisdom, Lingyi Wisdom, Lingyi Wisdom Source, Ling pupil wisdom source, and Lingyi Laike, and the proportion of voting shares after listing will drop to 27.14%.
▲Gridring deep pupil shareholding structure chart
Second, in 2020, the revenue exceeded 200 million, and the compound annual growth rate of revenue exceeded 100%
According to the prospectus, in 2018, 2019 and 2020, the revenue of Geling Deep Pupil was 51.9635 million yuan, 71.2107 million yuan and 242.7156 million yuan respectively, with a compound growth rate of 116.12%, especially in 2020. In the first half of 2021, the revenue of Glen Deep Pupil was 72.188 million yuan.
In 2020, in response to the new crown epidemic, Glen Deep Pupil launched a dual-light temperature measurement intelligent identification device. The sales of the equipment in that year were 47.1602 million yuan, accounting for 19.43% of the revenue of the year, which offset the adverse impact of the epidemic on the company to a certain extent. With the epidemic under control, from January to June 2021, the number of sales of dual-light temperature measurement intelligent identification equipment decreased, and the sales revenue of the equipment was 1.3322 million yuan.
In terms of net profit, Glenn Deep Pupil is still in a state of loss. From 2018 to 2020, the company's net profit was -74.5655 million yuan, -417.5832 million yuan and -78.2016 million yuan, respectively. The net profit of Geling Deep Pupil in the first half of 2021 was -57.0379 million yuan.
The cumulative R&D investment of Gölding Deep Pupil from 2018 to 2020 totaled 283.0878 million yuan, accounting for 77.37% of the cumulative operating income in the last three years, especially in 2018 and 2019, the R&D investment far exceeded the operating income.
▲Glen Deep Pupil revenue, net profit and R&D investment in the first half of 2018-2021
The revenue of Geling Deep Pupil mainly comes from urban management, smart finance, commercial retail and other fields. From 2018 to the first half of 2021, the highest proportion of Göring's deep pupil revenue is urban management products and solutions, which are the company's main source of revenue, and the lowest proportion is commercial retail products and solutions.
According to the prospectus, the main customers of Geling Deep Pupil are Agricultural Bank of China, Shang Bo Xin, Oriental Net Force, Chaoyang Agricultural Commission, China Unicom Shanghai Branch, China Jinyinli, Yi Hualu, Chaoyang Development and Reform Commission, COSCO Shipping, Zhongke Huaxun, Zhongtong Service, Jinbang Ronghe, Yintai Jinhong 11 institutions or enterprises.
Among them, the Agricultural Bank of China has always been the top five customers of Geling Deep Pupil, but there are also hidden risks behind this. In the prospectus, Geling Deep Pupil pointed out that in September 2021, the framework purchase agreement of the Agricultural Bank of China's security equipment project in which GreenIng Deep Pupil participated expired, and at present, Green Deep Pupil has completed the bidding work of the renewal project, and the winning bid result has not yet been announced.
In terms of procurement, the procurement of raw materials required by the company is mainly divided into standard hardware procurement, customized hardware procurement, service procurement and supporting software and hardware procurement.
The main suppliers of Geling Deep Pupil are Tianyu Sanding Technology, LingyunGuang, Beijing Huasheng Tiancheng Technology, Guangdong Tianbo Information Technology, Zongli Technology, Hikvision, Ruichuang Weina, Steng Heli, Urumqi Tianli Xintong, Chengdu Jinkexin Technology, Shenzhen Aoby Zhongguang Technology, Tianjin Sitong Chuangyuan Technology, Beijing Shenzhou Tianyang Technology, Guangzhou Jiu'an Intelligent 14 enterprises.
In addition, Glenn Deep Pupil was added to the U.S. Department of Commerce Entity List in July 2021. The prospectus pointed out that this may have certain restrictions on the company's procurement of hardware containing chips and other components produced by foreign manufacturers, which may have an impact on research and development and production, but the company has alternatives. At the same time, this matter will also have a certain adverse impact on the future of Geling Deep Pupil in the frontier theory of AI, academic research and international exchanges, as well as overseas business expansion.
Third, the benchmark "CV four dragons", R & D personnel accounted for more than 50%
During the reporting period, the main business income of Geling Deep Pupil mainly came from three major areas: urban management, smart finance, and commercial retail, providing ENTERPRISE USERS with AI products and solutions with computer vision technology and big data analysis technology as the core capabilities. In addition, Glenn Deep Pupil's solutions in the field of sports health and rail traffic operation and maintenance have also entered the customer verification stage.
The AI products independently developed by Geling Deep Pupil mainly include Zhiyuan Intelligent Front-end Products, Lingxi Data Intelligence Platform and Deep Pupil Industry Application Platform. These products can be sold individually or delivered to enterprise users in the form of a holistic industry solution.
▲Atlas of AI products and solutions of Geling Deep Pupil
As of June 2021, the company's R&D staff is 153, accounting for 54.64% of the total number of employees, an increase of 7 compared with the previous one. Among them, the number of people with master's degree or above is 58, accounting for 37.91% of the R & D personnel, which is lower than before. The core technical team of Geling Deep Pupil has a total of 7 people, namely Zhao Yong, Zhou Rui, Li Xinghua, Feng Jianshuai, Feng Ziyong, Hu Kaixian, and Luo Kai.
Glenn Deep Pupil mastered several core algorithmic techniques of computer vision. At present, Glaing Deep Pupil has formed five major technical directions, including model training and data production technology based on deep learning, 3D stereoscopic vision technology, automated traffic scene perception and event recognition technology, large-scale cross-mirror tracking technology and robot perception and control technology.
According to the prospectus, as of the end of the reporting period, Geling Deep Pupil has obtained a total of 29 patents, including 19 invention patents. At the same time, Glen Deep Pupil also obtained 77 software copyrights.
Among the five major technical directions of Glenn Deep Pupil, the number of invention patents in the direction of large-scale cross-mirror tracking technology is the largest, which is 9, followed by the direction of 3D stereoscopic vision technology, with 6 invention patents.
At present, Glin Deep Pupil has 8 research projects related to algorithm technology and 13 research projects related to application scenarios, and constantly tries to apply the technology more deeply.
In the field of computer vision technology and subdivision applications, the main competitors of Glend deep pupil are Megvii Technology, Yuncong Technology, Yitu Technology, Yuntian Lifei, Hongsoft Technology, and Danghong Technology.
From the perspective of operating conditions, the compound growth rate of Glending Deep Pupil's operating income ranks high. However, compared with other companies, Green Deep Pupil has the least operating income, R&D personnel and the number of patents. In the field of urban management, the competition between Glenn Deep Pupil and other competitors is more intense.
From the perspective of core technology comparison, Glenn Deep Pupil has achieved good results, consistent with the industry level, or some technologies have ranked first in the current algorithm test competition.
However, there is still a certain distance between having core technologies and realizing commercialization, in particular, the prospectus mentions that Geling Deep Pupil has the risks of late commercialization in the field of urban management, single large-scale landing scenarios of smart finance and commercial retail air transport, and high customer concentration, and the commercialization of new fields such as sports and health, rail transportation operation and maintenance is not as expected.
In addition, Geling Deep Pupil also pointed out in the prospectus that in the future, the company will pay more attention to the strategic investment in the direction of application scenarios, and the proportion of R&D investment in operating income will continue to remain at a relatively high level, and will not be affected by the situation that it has not yet made a profit.
Conclusion: Star AI companies are going public one after another
Following the successful listing of SenseTime on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the deep pupil of Glen, which has endured several storms, has finally been successfully listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board. Some other well-known AI companies are only one step away from going public, and AI star companies have ushered in a wave of small peaks in IPOs.
The total revenue of Glen Deep Pupil in the first half of 2021 was 72.188 million yuan. Due to the long research and development cycle of AI algorithms and technologies and the large investment in research and development, in order to attract talents to implement a number of employee equity incentives, the company is still in a period of rapid development and other reasons, the company's net profit continues to be negative, when it can be profitable is uncertain.
In fact, there are many AI startups like Gelling Deep Pupil, and the existing revenue cannot meet the high continuous investment in research and development. In this context, successful listing cannot equal profitability, the future path of these AI startups is full of uncertainties, and the commercialization of technology still has a long way to go.